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Emergency Preparedness
Planning for the Next Disaster: Pandemic
1/11/2008
Unfortunately, although clinical trials are underway, vaccines effective against a pandemic virus are not yet generally available. Similarly, although several antiviral drugs that can reduce the severity and duration of seasonal influenza may be effective in treating pandemic influenza, they must be administered within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms. Finally, virus specific vaccines and antiviral drugs are difficult to develop, test, and stockpile until after the new viral strain has emerged. And time won’t be on our side.
That leaves us with non-pharmaceutical strategies--ones that my mother, who was a rural health nurse in the 1930s, would recognize. Based on extensive mathematical modeling using the United States and Great Britain, the Nature article concluded:
- Border restrictions and/or internal travel restrictions are unlikely to delay spread by more than two to three weeks unless more than 99 percent effective;
- School closure during the peak of a pandemic can reduce peak attack rates by up to 40 percent, but has little impact on overall attack rates;
- Case isolation or household quarantine could have a significant impact, if feasible;
- Treatment of clinical cases can reduce transmission, but only if antivirals are given within a day of symptoms starting;
- Given enough drugs for 50 percent of the population, household-based prophylaxis coupled with reactive school closure could reduce clinical attack rates by 40 percent to 50 percent.
Whoa, hold it partner. Let’s go back to that third bullet. The Internet allows us to effectively work from home! The challenge to us IT folks then becomes making sure that the network and mission critical systems remain up and running--and that is something we know how to do!
A Very Short Institutional Quiz
Does your institution have a business continuity plan and process that specifically addresses a pandemic? According to Gartner’s McGee, business continuity plans that do not specifically address pandemics will not be effective.
Does your IT organization have a business continuity plan and process that specifically addresses a pandemic? One the most effective strategies to prevent the spread of infection is working online from home--and that is something IT can plan for. This can be done even if your institution does not have an institution-wide plan.
Have you tested your plan? For example, in the case of working from home, how about a planned surprise exercise in which all employees are directed not to show up for work in their office but to work from home for a day.
Where Can You Learn More?
Fortunately, there is a wealth of background material, planning documents, guidelines, and white papers available to help in developing an institutional or departmental strategy. Some of my favorite government sites are:
Recommended Reading
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